Siemens Robicon perfect harmony 2

[geefer]

We are currently looking at the possibility of installing a medium voltage drive on a 2.5 MW load The options appear to be ABB ACS 5000 the perfect harmony drive and an Allen Bradley drive . Initialy the Perfect harmony seemed to fit the bill, however their competitors make a big play of the component count and percieved maintenace issues . Does anyone have any experience of these drives or the other 2 mentioned.

 

[VladimirM]

I had an experience with ROBICON Perfect Harmony (6kV/1250kW) here in Russia. What can I say? It works exactly as declared by ROBICON. (Now it's SIEMENS, but who cares?) Anyway it seems to me as a very good drive, but the production takes a good deal of time and cost is very high.

What exactly do You want to know, Geefer?

 

[oldfieldguy]

Since Siemens acquired Robicon, I, the "owner" of three Siemens GM-150 drives, have seen former Robicon, now Siemens, techs on my projects. They speak highly of the Robicon drive in respect to the Siemens product.

Please consider where the expertise resides should your drive need 'support'. Having to drag an engineer out of Europe has not been beneficial to us.

old field guy

 

[controlsdude]

If I had the choice I would pick some other drive than Allen Bradley. The 480vac drives, not the mv your talking about. Not sure the quality is the same for a mv versus the 480vac drives I have had a long history where I see either 1 or 2 drives die in infancy out of maybe 20 drives for a typical installation.

Also, AB does not put any extra capacity in the drive, what I mean is if you have a 20HP drive the AB drive will barely put out 24 amps, but another drive like Mitsubishi will put out 30 amps. I am not sure what the ABB would put out in amps. But it would be something to keep in mind.

Also, when an AB drive fails I have had a lot of them where the dc buss would short or blow up, and other brands the dc bus would just open. Something else to keep in mind, and btw the fusing or cb were sized right so dont come back and say probably had the wrong size fusing, etc... Not the case.

Maybe ab drives at this size are different but I doubt it. I only use them only because we are forced to use them due to costing and agreements at my oem company.

 

[jraef]

geefer,
You didn't say where you are located and that makes a big difference in my opinion, because unlike LV drives, MV drives are something you want really good technical support on. Of the ones you mentioned, I would think that if you were in Europe, Siemens and ABB would be better choices, but if you were in the US, all 3 would be fine from that standpoint.

By the way, you left out Toshiba, also one of the premier MV VFD manufacturers. I would consider them over A-B if I had to limit your choices to 3.

To be fair, I work for Siemens, albeit a different division. But in my prior life, I did a lot of projects with MV drives on them and I have worked side-by-side with the technicians commissioning drives from all 3 of your choices. I would pick the Robicon hands down every time. I also used to work for ABB Drives Div. in the US and they had a complete overhaul of their MV drive product line in the last few years because it was not getting the job done in the marketplace. I have not heard anything bad about their newer ones however. At one time, ABB was making the large drives for Allen Bradley, but now Rockwell makes their own in Canada, which means they are a relative newcomer in the MV VFD world.

Component count means little. Reliability means everything. Ask for end user references, especially ones in your locale.


"If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe." -- Abraham Lincoln
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[JBUDA54]

Toshiba and GE have merged and offer the DuraBuilt MV Drive.

 

[gotcho]

The AB and Robicon MV VFD's are both good products. In my opinion the biggest part of purchasing a MV VFD would be the support in your area.

As for 480 VAC AB VFD's, if any VFD is incorrectly sized, it will not do the job. As every company has at least 2 Duty Classes per horsepower (Mits has 4), it is more important than ever to size the VFD for the load and duty cycle. Personally, I haven't had any worse experience with the AB's failing as compared with the Mitsubishi or ABB and I really like the AB's communications abilities.

 

[Skogsgurra]

Talking about communication and support...

I got a mail from these guys:

http://www.ld-harvest.com

They obviously think that I am going to buy quite a lot of their MV drives. As I never have - or will - bought any MV drives, I pass on this and let you guys have a chance to buy a super product. But, I do not know about communication and support.

BTW, very similar to Robicon. Aren't they?

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

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100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...

 

[VladimirM]

http://www.ld-harvest.com

is not the only one so similar to Robicon. There are also:

http://www.yaskawa.com

http://www.rxpe.com

http://www.tmeic.co.jp

The last one did installed its MV drive in Russia in the city of Toliyatti. I heard there were problems with those drive on the 4th day after start-up due to power cell explosion. And I heard the Customer was very unlucky because with the Manufacturer in Japan he had to wait for several months till the power cell was changed. This shows that in MV drives area we have a situation where the closer the manufacturer the better. And IMHO neither of above mentioned chinese and japanese manufacturers can reach Robicon (Siemens) level. Neither in price nor in quality

 

[controlsdude]

you have to love close support. Even when I had problems with AB drives, they next day'd the replacement drive. It was a no questions asked replacement.

So I would always go with the local support and how close is the manufacturer. Even if it is an inferior product, it hard to get a part from the other side of the world.

 

[LionelHutz]

Gunner;

Are you being sly? It looks to me like a Chinese company that has copied the patented Robicon drive topology. I've heard that had happened but have not seen the product yet. Does the name "Harvest Electric" reflect the method used to obtain the technology?

But then, I've also heard rumours about a medium voltage soft-starter that looks a lot like a Benshaw unit for sale in China.

 

[Skogsgurra]

Perhaps I should've said VERY similar?

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

--------------------------------------
100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...

 

[jraef]

To be fair, Yaskawa has a contracted brand-label / joint venture agreement with Siemens / Robicon that predated the Siemens purchase but has been beneficial for both companies. A key to business success in Japan is to have a Japanese partner. I think that at the time, Robicon entered into that agreement as opposed to trying to set up their on organization.

Never heard about the others though. The funny thing about the first one (LD Harvest?) is that internally within the Power Conversion Division of Siemens, Robicon is part of the Large Drives group, affectionately known as LD. Robicon had a separate operating company in China which Siemens bought and made into a Siemens Subsidiary, so I doubt those are brand lables, but you never know any more.


"If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe." -- Abraham Lincoln
For the best use of Eng-Tips, please click here -> faq731-376